Part 40 (1/2)

MARIAN AND I pastored in Antioch for fifteen years. We lived in five different houses, worked at ten different jobs. I didn't draw a full-time salary from Antioch Pentecostal Mission until we'd been there ten years.

Antioch Mission began with Avery and Pete Sisson and their families, and we met in Avery and Joan's living room. Within the year, we moved into the old church building we rented from Mr. Framer, and three years after that we finally got an indoor toilet. We bought that building from Mr. Framer in 1987, the same year Marian and I got burned out of our home. We started our new building in 1990, were approved for occupancy in 1995, and moved in Easter Sunday.

On my last Sunday in November of 1997, the church was well established in its new building on the west side of town, on a quaint knoll just above the highway. There were one hundred and fifty in the congregation, a bank account in the black, a big yellow bus that ran well, a good youth program, and the church's name on a fancy, sandblasted sign out front.

Fifteen years. A journey that felt so long and was over so soon, in a little town few people ever heard of. Fifteen years. Ninety-three souls saved. Twenty-three weddings. Fourteen funerals. A small retirement account, no real estate, a little savings.

When I left the ministry, I was alone, and wondering what in the world I thought I'd been doing all that time.

MORGAN AND I declined a dessert but asked for coffee.

And then she just looked at me, studying me. I regretted sounding so depressed at the end of my recap. My stories tended to end on a blue note these days.

”Give me some names,” she said.

”Beg your pardon?”

She gave a half-shrug and picked up her coffee cup. ”Just some names. People you remember from those fifteen years. Tell me some stories.”

JOE KELMER. He was in his fifties, a rancher with five hundred acres south of town. I was working with Pete Sisson's crew, preparing to pour a slab for a new stable out on his place. Pete, Johnny Herreros, Tinker Moore, and I were knee-deep in a ditch, digging footings and hurling dirt like a chain gang when Joe came out to see how we were doing, his hands in his jeans pockets, his face a little glum. It wasn't like him. Usually he'd come over to check on our progress and talk so much he'd hinder it.

”How's it going?” We told him fine, and Pete said we were hoping to get the steel in and pour by the day after tomorrow.

”So how's Joe today?” Pete asked.

”Oh, not too good,” he replied, sitting on an overturned five gallon bucket. ”My bowels ain't worth the p.o.o.p that goes through 'em.”

”What's the problem?” I expected one of Joe's typical complaints about the water, his wife's cooking, or his advancing age.

”Cancer,” he said. ”Just found out this morning.” We stopped digging. ”Doc says they'll probably have to take the whole thing out.”

We all stood in the ditch, our shovels in our hands, trying to adjust to the news and wondering what we could say.

”We'll have to pray for you,” said Pete. ”Get old Travis here to lay hands on you and get the Lord to chase that cancer out of there!”

Oh, thanks a lot, Pete! Set me up, why don't you?

But Joe just got up like a tired old man and said, ”You'd better keep working. I'd like to see this barn while I'm still around.” Then he left.

I first met Joe and Emily Kelmer on another project the year before, and immediately returned, more appropriately dressed, for a pastoral call. It turned out they considered themselves Catholics, meaning that was their background, but they never attended ma.s.s and had never been inside Our Lady of the Fields. They didn't have much use for my ministerial side, but they did appreciate my skill with hammer and saw and shovel and said so.

After Joe gave us the news, I did pray for him. I led the guys in prayer right there in the ditch that day, and Marian and I remembered him in our prayers every evening. I trusted G.o.d. There was no way in the world I could predict what the Lord would do, but I trusted him.

Well, G.o.d is never short on surprises. Joe told me he hadn't been inside a church since the day he and Emily were married, but the very next Sunday, he and Emily came into our little church on Elm Street arm in arm. We'd been meeting in that building for close to three years. The lockers were finally gone. Avery and Pete had recently completed a labor of love: a pulpit, a communion table, and a matching cross for the back wall. For now, we were using any chairs folks could bring from home-folding chairs, lawn chairs, plastic chairs, and dining chairs. Joe and Emily went right to the front row and sat in two green, plastic patio chairs.

I was leading some opening wors.h.i.+p choruses, playing my guitar while Marian played the piano, but I let the others keep singing while I ducked aside and greeted Joe and Emily.

”Okay, Travis. I'm here,” he said. ”You can go ahead and pray for me.”

I went back to leading the singing, my mind half on what I was doing and half on what I would have to do in a few minutes. It's easy to pray for colds and flu, final exams, and unsaved loved ones. Most of those things work themselves out in G.o.d's own good time. Colon cancer doesn't do that. The wors.h.i.+p was sweet. Mine was intense.

”Folks,” I finally said, ”a lot of you know Joe and Emily.” Those who did said hi, and Joe and Emily said hi back. ”Joe's here because he needs prayer.”

Joe stood and faced the thirty or so people who had gathered. ”I'm not a religious man. Haven't had much time for G.o.d most of my life. But that doesn't mean he isn't there and can't hear me if I want to talk to him, you know what I mean?”

”Amen,” some said. ”Praise G.o.d.”

”And I'm hoping he won't mind if I decide to come to him now after waiting so long.”

He paused, perhaps to gather his resolve, perhaps to corral his emotions. ”I have colon cancer. You know how it is, you get sick and you think you'll get over it and before long you've waited too long. The doctor says-” He stopped. Crying was something Joe Kelmer didn't believe in. He took a breath. ”He says they'll have to take the whole thing out, put me on chemotherapy, pump me full of drugs and whatever. Won't be able to take a c.r.a.p like most people-excuse me, I didn't mean to say it that way.”

He turned and faced me. ”Anyway, I made G.o.d a deal. If he takes this cancer from my body, then I'll give him my attention, first thing, above everything, the rest of my life. If he'll give me my life, I'll give it back to him. And that's about it.”

I absolutely did not know how this was going to turn out. Joe was either going to have a great reason to serve G.o.d or a great reason not to, at least in his thinking, and it was hard to be comfortable about it.

And then, when he came forward and stood facing me, ready to be prayed for, I couldn't banish old memories from my mind. I could just see myself standing in front of Andy Smith and Karla d.i.c.kens back in the old KenyonaBannister days. I could remember the episode with Sharon Iverson, the girl with diabetes who almost died at Christian Chapel.

Well, Lord, I prayed, you know all about that. You know I don't want to get into any kind of pretensions or showiness. I didn't ask for this. You brought it about, and now, here we are, that's all I know. Here we are.

Joe was waiting.

I took my little vial of olive oil from the back of the pulpit and put a drop on Joe's forehead. ”This oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit,” I told him. ”In the Book of James it tells us to anoint the sick with oil and pray, and the Lord will restore the sick. Do you believe that, Joe?”

He shrugged. ”Sure, why not?”

”Let's pray for Joe,” I said, beckoning to the Sisson brothers and Bruce Hiddle, my elders, to join me. We laid hands on Joe, and then I prayed. I don't remember much of my prayer. I said something about Joe wanting a touch from G.o.d, and humbling himself in meek pet.i.tion, and I know I requested that G.o.d would just glorify himself in Joe's body, in the name of Jesus.

And just like that, it was over. ”Thanks for coming, Joe.”

”Thank you, Travis,” was all he said as he sat down.

They stayed for the rest of the service, received love and greetings from all of us, and then left.

Monday morning we were framing up the walls of the new stable and wondering how Joe was doing. He never came out of the house and we didn't hear a thing from Emily or anyone else. We remembered him in prayer at lunch time.

Tuesday, it was the same thing. We watched the house to see if any cars were gone, and one was. Maybe Joe was in the hospital. Maybe he was in for tests, chemotherapy, or even surgery to have his colon removed. We couldn't find out.

Wednesday morning, after we'd put in about an hour, Joe came out to see us, his hands in his jeans pockets, his cowboy hat set firmly on his head.

”Hey Joe,” I said, ”how's it going?”

He looked straight at me, that old Joe Kelmer half-smile on his face, and said, ”Guess who doesn't have cancer anymore?”

The silence that fell over us was just as long and awkward as when we first heard the bad news.

I was being cautious, I guess. I actually said, ”Who?”

Joe gave his chest two little taps with his thumb.

We were amazed. That's all there was to it. ”You're kidding!” ”Praise G.o.d!” ”Are you sure?” ”What'd the doctor say?”